Wilonsky said this of Brittany or some such, but I think it applies here… the YFZ416 is a public abduction. Shameful.

And where is the ACLU? It seems they are only active when the hot button involves a Bible and Jesus. Have you seen what is happening to John Freshwater in Ohio? THAT’S where the ACLU are.

Good times.

The ACLU is an empty vessel. It claims to be in support of the rights of the people against government, that it supports individual rights versus collective tyranny, but when has it ever come to the aid of someone seeking to assert their individual rights pursuant to the Second Amendment? Similarly, they don’t take cases where it’s the religious versus the government, only when it’s the anti-religious versus the government.

They claim to be blind to ideology and to politics, but it’s a false claim. They’re completely corrupted by politics.

Knuckleheads: Here is where the ACLU is on this:http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/20/polygamy.sect/

And for the 1,000th time, when CPS removes a child from a home, probable cause standards required by criminal law have no relevance at all — that’s because it’s a civil proceeding.

Johan, you’ve proved the point. Your cited article notes that the ACLU is “concerned.” La di da. I’m concerned, you’re concerned, everybody reading and posting on this is concerned. Most of us don’t have as our mission to engage in litigation on behalf of and in support of individuals other than ourselves.

However, that is, in summary, the core of the ACLU’s mission. And while they claim to be non-partisan, their actions speak louder than their words. If the ACLU were truly concerned about the issues at hand in the Zion case, they would have already filed a lawsuit seeking mandamus to force a separate hearing for each individual child forcibly removed from their parent. That’s just for starters. There are about a billion legal problems with what’s going on out there and it’s going to take years and tens of millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars to clean this mess up.

If the ACLU were truly concerned, they’d be doing more than standing on the sideline wringing their hands.

(And Houston, that’s just inappropriate. i’m sure you’re right, but let’s stay on target here and not get all ad hominem.)

Johan, the ACLU rarely has standing on its own in any case that they handle. They’re always on the case via a party with standing — an aggrieved citizen who doesn’t like a creche on city property, a 16-year old who isn’t able to wear a t-shirt to school with a “provocative” message, etc. If the ACLU wanted in on this case, they could surely find someone to bring them in. Hell, knowing family lawyers in this state, at least half of them would welcome the ACLU’s intervention. (By which I mean intervention in the lay sense, not in the sense of filing a petition in intervention). The other half would be completely against it. Why? Because the ACLU is a partisan organization with little interest in defending the rights of the religious.

The argument that the ACLU is staying out now becuase it would be dogpiling is absurd. The best time for an ostensibly non-partisan third-party to get into a case like this one is when it can lead the charge to the inevitable place that the charge is leading. Then they get all the glory without doing all the hard work.

One thing upon which I suspect we both agree is that there are a bunch of lawyers out in El Dorado doing yeoman’s work on this case. Pretty much thankless legal work in the middle of nowhere, far away from their busy, demanding, paying clients, trying to secure liberty for a bunch of people they’ve never met before and for which they will be barely compensated, if at all. They answered the call and went when they were needed. I applaud them for their sacrifice. We should all bear this in mind the next time we make or hear a joke at the expense of lawyers.

The children! Won’t somebody please think of the children!!!